Confidential Confessions: First and Last Time
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [Confidential Confessions] The first time they thought about crossing that fine line sometimes they hadn't even realised they'd crossed...and that last, sometimes beyond a point they could return from, and sometimes just inside of it...
1. Manatsu: First Time

**A/N:** Written for the Mega Prompts Challenge, word prompts #024 – black.

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><p><strong>Confidential Confessions: First and Last Times<strong>

(Story 1: The Door)**  
>1. Manatsu, First Time<strong>

It really didn't hurt.

Blood was pouring from her wrist: running down her arm and dripping on to the floor. But it didn't hurt. Not even the tiniest bit.

The world simply grew fuzzy. The frustration, the anger – they all seeped out of her. All of it…the too bright colours, the too sharp voices, that fluttering inside her chest…all of it just poured out in those little droplets and fell on to the carpet and left a slowly growing black behind.

Her mother was panicking, but Manatsu found she wasn't worried at all. She wasn't hurting anyway. Just falling asleep.

That was fine. That was how she wanted it. Die before she could hurt. Before she could regret. Before this outflow of emotions stopped and the inflow began. Before she could be stopped.


	2. Asparagus: First Time

**A/N:** Written for the Mega Prompts Challenge, word prompts #016 – afraid.

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><p><strong>Confidential Confessions: First and Last Times<strong>

(Story 1: The Door)**  
>2. Asparagus, First Time<strong>

She didn't even remember the first time she'd cut in to her skin: just that it was a perfectly beautiful feeling she couldn't find anywhere else.

The rest of the world just disgusted her. The way they tore at her body and her mind until there was nothing of value left in either of them – but they never touched her blood. That made it hers: only hers. To do what she willed with it. Slice her wrists until they bled dry. Rub her sticky red arms with somebody else just to feel a sense of companionship…

And maybe that was why she hadn't died. She'd been waiting for someone to join her. To sink with her and then float, taking her along. To see those deep scars and pick out the first, tentative or accidental one. To tell her why she'd done that: why she'd been unable to stop doing that once she'd begun.

And maybe to stop her from doing that again as well. But she was also terrified of that.


	3. Manatsu: Last Time

**A/N: **Written for the Mega Prompts Challenge, word prompts #027 – disastrous.

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><p><strong>Confidential Confessions: First and Last Times<strong>

(Story 1: The Door)**  
>3. Manatsu, Last Time<strong>

She'd thought it would be easy. It wasn't. There were so many chances they'd had – but she'd ruined every one of them. She'd done it wrong. Made excuses. Tried to prolong the end she claimed she wanted to come…

Maybe Asparagus was right. Maybe she did lack that willpower. Or that want. To end her life.

Were all her petty reasons even enough? There were so many fun things. Weren't they smiling a lot? Wasn't that a good enough reason to keep on living? Even if they were ruining their chances for tomorrow with all that they were doing. Self-mutilation. Working in a sex shop – even if they weren't selling their bodies there.

And then, that kid with the cyanide. That could have been murder.

Manatsu couldn't accept that. But she also couldn't accept that she didn't want to die after coming this far.

Except when she hung desperately from the roof, she knew it and screamed it: she didn't want to die.

And seeing Asparagus on the rails, balancing, ready to fall, Manatsu thought she might have been too late in saying it.

They might have both been dead, and she in the worst way possible: regretting it.


	4. Asparagus: Last Time

**A/N: **Written for the Mega Prompts Challenge, word prompts #035 – decisive.

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><p><strong>Confidential Confessions: First and Last Times<strong>

(Story 1: The Door)**  
>4. Asparagus, Last Time<strong>

She'd given up hoping Manatsu would join her. Maybe she was even a tiny bit relieved. Maybe she was hoping that Manatsu would even be able to save her…

But she couldn't wait for that. She couldn't wait any longer to be saved. She needed to die now, before she lost the will to do it. She needed to cut so deeply the wound would never repair itself.

Maybe all those scars on her wrists were signs that she hadn't wanted to die. That she hadn't been committed enough. That's why she'd needed Manatsu.

But she'd had fun. Even though she didn't want to admit it. Too much fun. That unwavering decision she'd simply been too scared to follow through with had become shaky, doubtful.

And that doubt, that sliver of hope that had been born, was unbearable. She didn't want to surrender to it again. Become lost in it again: searching desperately, thinking that things could get better when they couldn't…

She forced herself to cut and cut until she couldn't move any more. No more hesitating – because, next time, she mightn't be able to find that willpower, that frenzied desperation, again.


	5. Manatsu: Time After

**A/N: **Written for the Mega Prompts Challenge, word prompts #039 – empty.

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><p><strong>Confidential Confessions: First and Last Times<strong>

(Story 1: The Door)**  
>5. Manatsu, Time After<strong>

Manatsu didn't understand: why Asparagus was suddenly gone, why all the conversations they'd had were suddenly meaningless because not one of those fantasies had come true.

Her death made no statement at all. And she had no say in it. They didn't use the image they'd wanted her to use. They'd put in the flowers and the music and the prayers she hated. And those girls who'd driven her to it just scoffed a little and went on with their lives like nothing had changed for them.

Nothing _had_ changed for them. The ones who were suffering, the ones who'd been hollowed out by that loss, were people like her who truly cared.

And everybody else would forget. Already, they were getting her name wrong. Saying all those things that weren't true because Manatsu had gotten to know her oh so well.

Why? she couldn't help but ask herself. Why couldn't her suicide at least have some meaning?

_Or why couldn't she have hung on a little longer?_

Then maybe, like Manatsu, she might have found a reason not to go through with it after all.


End file.
